Lord Recluse
Lord Recluse is the leader of Arachnos, a huge organization of supervillains, and is the most powerful supervillain of City of Heroes/''City of Villains''. He is a former friend of the game's signature hero, Statesman. Lord Recluse's intelligence, reasoning and charisma are not just superhuman but Incarnate (divine/inter-dimensional) and as such his specific mental skills are pre-calculated across the multi-verse to be the strongest concentration of each that ever has or will exist in his reality. His introduction in City of Heroes heralded the opening of the City of Villains and eventually lead to the two games becoming extensions of each other. Leading to him becoming the main source of villainy both in-universe and out-of-universe. History Stefan Richter Lord Recluse was once Stefan Richter, a wealthy technocrat and Austrian-American son of Rudy Richter. His father took in young Marcus Cole (who would become Recluse’s arch-nemesis, the Statesman), after Marcus’ mother died in childbirth and his father drank himself to death. Stefan and Marcus quickly became close friends and served together in World War I, but it was during this time that Marcus was exposed to mustard gas and while he was lucky enough to survive, it badly damaged his lungs and made him chronically ill. Hoping to find a cure, Stefan and Marcus set out to find the Fountain of Zeus and managed to steal an ancient Greek scroll from a museum in London. They headed to an ancient Greek island known as Praxidae, the home of the Well of the Furies and below that, the Fountain of Zeus. Marcus and Stefan located the island and both drank from the fountain, gaining god-like powers and curing Stefan, however before they left the island, Stefan and Marcus found an artifact, a box that glowed with a blinding light, which seemed to be the source of the Fountain’s power, that was apparently Pandora’s Box. When they opened it, the stored creativity of all humankind was released and its power began a Golden Age of superheroes. Becoming Recluse The opening of Pandora’s Box was explosive, resulting in a cave-in and Stefan was washed away into the open ocean. As he swam for shore, he became intoxicated by his new-found powers, envisioning himself as a god among men that would pave the way for technological science. Billy, a friend, went searching for Stefan and when he found him, he tried to drag Stefan out of the water, but Stefan, consumed by his vision and determined to embrace his new destiny, grabbed Billy by the throat and snapped his neck with ease, before tossing his body into the sea. Stefan climbed into the boat Billy had used and returned to civilization, ready to begin his new future survival demanded cruelty. Stefan would reunite with Marcus and convinced him of all they could do with their new powers. Marcus had not had the same sort of awakening as Stefan, but did feel the need to put his new powers to use as well. When they arrived home, they found that Rudolf Richter had gotten extremely sick shortly after both men had left for the War. Stefan managed to convince Marcus to help him get the money to save his father and Stefan began a life of crime. With Stefan's perfect planning and Marcus's god-like strength the capers went off perfectly. However as time went on, Marcus became more and more uncomfortable with what Stefan's plans called for. Eventually Marcus refused to help Stefan when he saw his friend was willing to resort to out-right murder in order to get away with a plan. Marcus dawned a disguise and alias of The Statesman, and used his new persona to stop crimes in Paragon City to make-up for his time helping Stefan. Shortly after Statesman appeared, Rudy Richter died despite his extended treatments. Stefan half blamed Marcus for leaving, thus forcing him to make plans for smaller safer crimes with smaller pay-outs, but increasingly despised Statesman for preventing him from making a dishonest living. With his father dead and criminal activities no-longer safe, Stefan left the US for Europe, but swore he would return one-day to build a criminal empire, in-spite of The Statesman. While in Italy, Stefan proceeded to join a shady organization called Arachnos, whose leader at the time was a mysterious figure called only the Weaver. Stefan was made one of the Weaver's right-hands, as Arachnos's operation planner, with his promotion Stefan focused on the meta-physical embrace of his Incarnate nature. As Stefan began to focus his new dark powers, he started suffering from physical changes. His eyes started to have an almost allergic reaction to bright lights and changed to glowing red, burning with evil. Stefan started developing a back hump, which eventually gained eight large arachnoid arms and he enhanced them with powerful claws made of a highly strong metal known as proto-steel. All of this helped Stefan as he tried to emulate Tartarus, an ancient evil demigod. With his transformation complete, "Stefan Richter" was no more; Recluse had truly been born. In the early 1932, Recluse proposed an massive operation to the Weaver, a criminal empire that assimilated it's former local government. The Weaver was excited about the operation and appointed Recluse as the head of the American branch, which was to be based in Paragon City. During his time acclimating himself to Paragon, Recluse stayed undercover, hiding his extra arms at his sides beneath his clothing. While down-playing his presence Recluse observed the workings of Paragon's underworld. Stefan saw that Paragon's main criminal syndicate The Family was secretly run by a supervillain going by the name Lord Nemesis. Lord Nemesis was an oppressive sponsor and Stefan saw he could shift their loyalty. Recluse offered The Family semi-free reign of Paragon City if they helped him with his plans. The Family was won over by Recluse's generous offers and tired of working for Nemesis, they became Arachnos's improvised militia of crime for the operation. Recluse sent Arachnos spies, to take on jobs as guards, military members and police members. While the operatives were getting into place Recluse had his formal battle-armor completed dawning the fearsome image of an armored warlord, now proudly displaying his spider-like appendages. Recluse had The Family create a massive riot in down-town Paragon during which time The Family committed a series of mass robberies, with the understanding Recluse would keep the police from interfering. Statesman of-course would arrive, at which point the forces of The Family, all lowered their guns and parted to reveal the newly realized supervillain "Recluse" in his first great crime on US soil. Marcus recognized Stefan's voice as a he spoke and was forced to fight his best-friend in abject horror. Though Recluse aimed to win, the battle was no vital to is plans. Recluse was using the battle as a distraction to keep Paragon's great hero busy while Weaver enacted his plan for him, having the under-cover Arachnos agents attack key parts of the city and hold it's key decision makers hostage. However the Weaver had improvised his own part of the plans and instead used Recluse's reveal as a launching point for the attack. All the Arachnos agents that Recluse had spent months smuggling into key-points in Paragon attacked Statesman during the battle with Recluse. Statesman fought off the Arachnos siege, and Recluse enraged that his plan was for naught, made his get-away, the siege ultimately being pointless with the Arachnos agents exposed. Statesman won thanks to the help of Stefan's sister Monica Richter AKA Maiden Justice, and the hero Dark Watcher. Seeing even Statesman could not save the say with all the city's worst banning together, they three formed The Freedom Phalanx and began encouraging superheroes to rise up to prevent such an event from happening again. Becoming Lord Recluse Recluse was enraged his careful planning had been for nothing and with the formation of The Freedom Phalanx, it seemed he would never get quite the same opportunity again. Recluse had the Weaver assassinated by Red Widow, usurping him as the leader of Arachnos. Recluse claimed that the Weaver's lack of vision combined with his power-lust had utterly blinded him to Arachnos's potential, none of his fellow members took issue with the logic and Recluse took on the title "Lord Recluse", with his new station as supreme leader of Arachnos. Lord Recluse renewed his plans to assimilate a government, but needed to look outside the U.S. with Statesman rallying meta-humans to stand-together there. Arachnos established a base on the Etoile Islands, which gained the nickname, Rogue Isles, an archipelago off the American east coast. Lord Recluse launched a successful military coup, declaring the Isles to be the domain of Arachnos and began working on forming his empire. Recluse continued to operate from the Rogue Isles, which he ruled with an iron fist as he prepared for world domination. Powers and Abilities Lord Recluse has superhuman strength, speed, and stamina and eight armored arachnoid arms on his back. Though Lord Recluse has super human strength from being an incarnate most of his strength is in-fact the result of his power armor. Lord Recluse's mechanical talons are grafted to his spine, each functions as a laser-cannon with sharpened ends to double as impalement tools strong enough to tear through steel. Lord Recluse's intellect was greatly increased by the Well of the Furies, so much so that he is considered the most intelligent being on the planet. In addition to a highly sophisticated and intelligent mind, Lord Recluse constructed his Seer-Net, a mental network of psychics loyal to him, to allow him to issue orders telepathically to any and all troops. In addition to providing Lord Recluse with an instant means of communication with his men, the Seer-Network doubles as a mental block against mind-reading, hypnosis, brainwashing and possession, as Arachnos' highest priority member, the Seer-Net shields Lord Recluse's already hard to pierce mind, making him immune to all forms of mental/spiritual influence. Lord Recluse is practically immortal thanks to the Well of Furies, like the Statesman, and while the two of them could live for many millennia, it’s not certain how long they will stay alive. In the tie-in novel Web of Arachnos, by Robert Weinberg, which details the period between Stefan Richter's disappearance and his reemergence as Recluse, Recluse states that he had tested his immortality by giving himself a variety of wounds that would have been fatal without medical attention but was never willing to test a guaranteed death like a bullet to the brain and thus even he is unsure as to whether he is truly immortal or just hard to kill. Lord Recluse is a Mastermind archetype and thus can summon and control henchmen, but he can control far more than other villains of this type. Since his powers come from the same source as the Statesman, Lord Recluse may also be an incarnate archetype. As leader of Arachnos, he controls a huge amount of minions and super-villains and uses them to launch many attacks against Paragon City. Meta-Powers As a M.M.O. City of Villains was subject to intelligent design and rather than trying to play down various ways the Rogue Isles functioned as coincidence the game developers shifted the in-universe credit to Lord Recluse, crediting the mysterious removal of trouble players and zones grouped by threat level as the work of Lord Recluse, who had complete control of the Isles - essentially making Lord Recluse the in-universe version of the dev-team. Lord Recluse appears to have knowledge of things only the player characters should know including secret plots against him, which he prepares for long before completion; all this is credited to his status as "smartest being on the face-of-the-planet" effectively justifying giving Lord Recluse meta-game insights. The terrifying truth of Lord Recluse's intellect is he can sum up and predict the actions of various groups, heroes and villains through simple observation, in essence granting him a crude semi-omniscience achieved through pure estimation. Just as The Well of the Furies has made Statesman as strong as he will ever need to be for any given situation he will ever encounter, Lord Recluse was made smart enough to calculate whatever he needs to for any given situation. Gallery Lordrecluse.png|Lord Reluse Lordreclusesf1.jpg|Lord Recluse recruiting a new supervillain into his fold Covi7-04.jpg|The waitng-room in Lord Recluse's headquarters Trivia *Lord Recluse's name was the nickname of David "Zeb" Cook, who was the former creative director behind City of Villains at Cryptic Studios. Cook left Cryptic Studios in 2006 and the nickname was given to Serdar Copur. *Both Non-Playable Characters and Players all refereed to Lord Recluse's full title, he was never dubbed "LR", or "Recluse" or given any such short-hand, yet most other villains and heroes were given such short-hands. 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